Author
Topic: Information about Backup4all 2.3.2 (Read 20812 times)

Hello all,My name is Claudiu and I represent Softland - developers of Backup4all (the backup software that I wanted to give you more information about).

Backup4all 2.3.2 main features:

The program allows you to create zip backup copies of single files or file folders of virtually any size (supports zip64). You can access it with any zip compatible utility.

The program may save backup copies to the local hard drive, CD, DVD or upload them via LAN

The software has its own built-in CD/DVD burning support. You can use also UDF format to burn your CDs/DVDs using a packet writing software

Other features of the program include the following: compression ratio change, password protection, disk spanning, backup statistics, extra actions/programs to perform before and/or after backup execution, command line support, play sounds when backup is finished, erase CD/DVD tool, one touch backup option and more (see http://www.backup4all.com/features.php)

Backup4all v.2.3.2 performs all four backup types: full backup, differential backup, incremental backup and mirror backup. Using the wizard you can easily set up any backup configuration you wish. You can define powerful file filters and schedule your backups any way you want. Once a backup is performed, you can see what files changed since the last backup using the explorer-like tree view or you can read the statistics about the next backup execution

More information about Backup4all: http://www.backup4all.comThere is a 30-day trial version available for download: http://www.backup4al...d/setup/b4asetup.exe (direct link, about 4MB)If you would like to receive a 20% discount on the final order page just enter this coupon code: MINDSHARE. Backup4all has 3 versions and the prices are $25 (mirror edition), $30(classic edition) and $45(professional edition).

If this post is in anyway offending or contains unappropriate remarks please feel free to delete it.

here are my impressions after playing with backup4all. i will be adding these to the current review.

bottom line: i was positively stunned at how good backup4all was - BUT it still has a couple issues that could use improvement.

the company who makes backup4all made a post on the forum and posted a code for 20% discount on there backup4all app.thought i would just share my thoughts on the program after evaluating it a bit.

first the good stuff:

First, i think the basic organization of the program, and its feature set are fantastic; maybe the best ive seen in any document backup app. i think they did an extraordinarily good job of organizing the process of making backups.

Using zip file format was great decision.

great incremental versioned backups (but see comments below)

super easy to use

then the stuff that could use some improvement:

seems somewhat slower than the other backup tools i've tried

Initially i was put off by the unusual button icons, but that's a simple aesthetic issue and others may have a different impression.

one other feature i couldn't find and would recommend highly if you don't currently support it (and i didnt see it): ability to specify *folder* patterns in the exclude and include filters.

the options pages (wizard) when setting up a new project are superb - maybe the clearest i've seen. but one thing that would be nice ishaving a "help" button on each page of the wizard that would take person to help page relevant for that subject. it would really be useful for things like choosing the type of backup, etc.

issues with exploring catalogs (see below)

extra comments:I'm a very big advocate of versioned backups, and backup4all seems to do a very good job of it.

But it can be very difficult to find out what files were added to each backup set, and to in general search for modified files, etc.

I discovered that the restore wizard actually has a nice way of letting you explore each different backup operation and thus study which files were saved each time.

What i would really like to see is some integration into the main exploration display some more flexible ways of browsing through backup sets. for example maybe being able to select specific backup sets and see the files added, or the ability to search for a particular file by name and see versions.

I really love the way when navigating to a file the program shows a list of all versions and their dates, and lets me view or restore any version (though it was sometimes excrutiatingly slow to retrieve files from older sets)

i think with a few changes backup4all could likely win our best document backup tool were we to conduct it again, and could win it when we revisit the issue in 2006. The general interface and ease-of-use far exceed Genie Backup.

BUT i would like to suggest that backup4all authors look at the Catalog view in Genie Backup, it allows you to explore and search the incremental backupsets, and does a very good job of it, and i think this is something that i would really miss using backup4all.

its probably the only area which would give me pause in recommending backup4all.

Coincidentally that was my first impression, too. I purchased Backup4all a version ago, but never used it much. After some crushing experiences with the ZIP format across a several programs, I abandoned it in favor of either RAR or just no compression at all, and just synching everything instead.

zridling, you mentioned just synching instead... can you list some programs that do this? I'm looking for a program that doesnt put my backups into ANY proprietary format so I dont need some fancy software to access them. I just cant find that many programs that do this! Maybe I just dont know how to search or am missing something obvious! Thanks,

I've been using a no-frills freeware (for personal, non-business use) program for years and I love it! I recommend it to all my clients (I own a computer repair shop and do security consulting) and use it myself to this day.

The program is called "Karen's Replicator" and can be downloaded (along with a handful of other fantastic programs) at her website: - http://www.KarenWare.com/

It's remarkably simple to use and very intuative. It's can be used as a software implementation of RAID-1 (Mirroring), for simply backing up a set of files or folders, or for making incremental backups of the same. My only gripe is that you can't run it as a service (she tried to keep it simple) plus there isn't a way to minimize it to the tray by default. (I use one of the hundreds of tray managers out there to peform this.) Beyond that, it's golden. Highly recommended!

Karen Kenworthy is a genius in my small world, but Kevin the two best synching apps I know are:

__(1) DirSync by ArcherSoft, which I've found to be the most accurate of all, and__(2) SyncBack SE, which has been around for while, but is more complex.

I use DirSync to backup my shareware/freeware to a second drive each night, and then once a week copy it all onto DVD without compression. What I do compress, I use WinRAR for its solid archive and recovery abilities.

Following a rather annoying experience with another company, I was wondering if Backup4All discriminates against those who purchase through DonationCoder with a discount code or if the published policies on the website are applicable no matter what you paid for the license?

DC will never make any discount arrangement that restricts the rights/support/upgrade-policy of a buyer. If you should ever be told by any company whose product you purchased through DC that you are not entitled to an upgrade because you bought with a discount, let us know and we will step in.

I've just had a play with the demo and am about to place an order for this software. I have to say I'm impressed.

+ The include exclude selection and filtering of folders is fantastic+ The speed of the backup is excellent+ It doesn't seem to have any problems with my samba share (which plenty of others do)+ Allows the zip files to be made in a temp file in case you have a slower network connection

I'm sure I'll find some faults as I continue to use it, but I might forget to actually post them

Forgot to say(Discount code doesn't work any more, however the standard and pro version has a $10 discount applied anyway)

I've just had a play with the demo and am about to place an order for this software. I have to say I'm impressed.

Plenty other niceties, too. Among those I don't remember mentioned in earlier discussion:

- You don't need to run Backup4All in the tray. If you use Windows Scheduler, there is no additional load on your system; the program only starts when a job is scheduled and can be configured to exit when done.

- I love being able to drag folders into the Source window, rather than fish for folders in a tree one at a time or select checkboxes. (The checkboxes are also available, though).

- This may have been mentioned, but open/locked file backup is smooth sailing, no problems there at all.

However, having used it for a year, I have a pretty long list of things I'd like to see improved. The first time I made a request I was pretty much brushed off by the author (politely, but still), and since there is no user forum, there is little one can apparently do to request a feaure or influecne the program's direction. Here's a short version of what I'm missing in Backup4All and some bugs I've found - I have yet to send it to the author, but after his first response I'm not too hopeful:

features

- backup files as they change, with an optional minimum time span between backups

- For versioning, there is an option to "Limit maximum number of stored backups", but no option to limit by date, i.e. Keep old versions of files for no more than n days. The latter is more useful / more intuitive than the number of backups, because e.g. I know I want to keep old versions for a month, but I don't know how many copies will be made in a month (and if I change the schedule, the number of backups will also change, which will in turn affect the limit). In other words, I don't care how many old versions I keep; I do care about always having access to versions at least a month old, and there is no way to configure that (unless you put no limit on old versions at all).

- ability to run regular backups (full, incremental or differential) without zipping. (The Mirror mode copies without zipping, but does not do versioning. If you mirror to folders with a datestamp, it copies all the files every time.) Zipping is of course hugely useful, but makes it hard to compare versions, since you must unzip the files first.

- There is no support for comparing stored versions. It should be pretty easy to add integration with Beyond Compare, WinMerge etc.

- when using the mirror mode, it does not scan the target folder, but copies everything, even if the target files are already in place. This is a more general issue - Backup4All relies ONLY on its catalog files (bkc). If you delete all mirrored files but keep the bkc, it will not restore the missing files, because the bkc file tells it they are present. And the opposite: if the target files are already there, it will still copy them over if the bkc file indicates they are absent. This has cost me several hours recently (backup over 54 kbit LAN).

- pause a job while it is running (important if a scheduled backup kicks in just when you're doing something disk-intensive)

- suspend all scheduled backup jobs (this can be done by manually editing Windows Scheduler tasks, but it should be a one-click operation, e.g. when installing software or running an operation that requires lots of disk throughput or network bandwidth)

- ability to backup selected registry keys to .reg files (very, very few programs do this. HandyBackup does, but it's $99 and misses a lot of other features, like backing up open files)

- automatically run tasks that were missed or have failed

- provide a remaining time estimate for a running job (there is a progress meter, but a rough estimate in minutes would be more useful)

- enable filtering in the jobs pane (e.g. show only tasks that have not been run yet; only tasks that are not scheduled; tasks with warnings or errors; tasks that have FTP or LAN as target, tasks that are scheduled to run today, etc - lots of possibilities here)

bugs

- error messages are too generic, especially for FTP-related errors. If, for example, you make a typo in the ftp server hostname, all the log message says is "could not connect". What it should report instead is DNS lookup failure, which would immediately tell you that the hostname is wrong.

- If Backup4All is configured to exit when a scheduled job is finished, it will quit even if you started it manually and are editing a profile in the dialog box. There is no prompt, it just quits while you're typing in it. A little annoying if you've just spent 5 or 10 minutes fine-tuning your file selection...

- There is a bug in its bug reporting feature (try it, "Support request" under the Help menu)

I don't understand this Backup4All, but that is no surprise because there are so many things connected to computers, that I don't get.

My version is PRO 3.11 build 300. The first year I didn't care to use it because I only had the one and same harddrive. But now my XP is rapidly getting more and more unstable, so I got myself a USB 2.0 Hard Drive for backups. Not fully understanding what type of backup I should use, I simply tried them all - and this is what left me completely in the dark: No matter what type of backup I used, the resulting files on the USB drive would not take up more than approx. 3 MB in total. How is it that 100 GB can scrimp to 3 MB?? I don't trust that! I am so sure that I have told B4A to "make FULL backup", and added ALL files and folders ("C:\ "). I also tried both differental and incremental backups, but could not notice any difference - the total size is still around 3 MB.

So maybe this kind of backup is for settings and such only, or what? I don't really know. I am not even interested in saving some settings, half the joy of getting a new PC is to play around and change both this and that, but I am finally very much interested in understanding HOW I am to make a genuine backup of my PC, before the content is all gone?

I have some fine programs to help me move from one PC to another, but if I don't get a new PC in time, these programs may (also) be worthless because I didn't understand HOW to secure the actual FILES and not merely some settings, or what it is that B4A is backing.

As you can see on my screenshot, tomos, it also works here, I did exactly as you (too) directed, but what about the size of the backup: 3 MB backing up 100 GB?? No way! How many GB are you backing up, and how much space does the produced backup files take?

As you can see on my screenshot, tomos, it also works here, I did exactly as you (too) directed, but what about the size of the backup: 3 MB backing up 100 GB?? No way! How many GB are you backing up, and how much space does the produced backup files take?

Are you backing up compressed files? I know my B4A spits the dummy when it tries that: generally it says that I have not got enough room.

Edit: Re-Looking at your screenshot... those file are the B4A index files, not the actual backups. The backups should be probably in a zip file.

The backup of my documents directory looks like this:Information about Backup4all 2.3.2

The actual backup files are contained in the Directory:Information about Backup4all 2.3.2

And it also looks like you're backing up your backups??? Is that right?

4½ hours ago I was feeling relieved, because I finally understood what I did wrong the first couple of times I tried to use Backup4All (B4A), and now realized how to begin a proper backup. Half an hour later, I was so disappointed I actually was thinking about removing B4A from my computer right away!

The backup started at 15:00:52 Danish time (GMT+1). Notice what happended:

"Cannot open file "C:\Documents and Settings\karar\Dokumenter\e-Books\ß?.doc".

I was "lucky" because I passed by the desk only two minutes later, and saw that the screen was showing some strange looking window, so I could click "skip" and see the backup procedure go on. But what if this has been at night and I was off to bed? The backup was stalled on pause: Nothing was happening! And for what? Waiting for me to click a button, because of lack of full Unicode support!!!

To confirm this mis-feature, it did the same thing 1½ hour later:

[17:01:07] Waiting for user input:

"Cannot open file "C:\Documents and Settings\karar\Dokumenter\Videoer\Ashley Tisdale - Be Good To Me ??.mp4".

This time I was lucky again and wasted merely six more minutes. It was not the files' content, but the names of the files, that was the problem: "Syntaksen i filnavnet, mappen eller diskenhedsnavnet er forkert." = "The syntax in ("of"?) the file name is wrong"

The actual file names in question:ßИ.docAshley Tisdale - Be Good To Me ♫♥.mp4

These characters, И♫♥, are of course not common in any way, but they are supported by Explorer and my media players and several other programs, including your browser (?), and to my understanding they are Unicode characters. B4A does of course support Unicode, but not FULLY.

Next problem: the compressing to zip containers.For some time I watched the text very closely as B4A was working, and it became clear to me that maybe 70 percent of the time was spent "updating zip file"! So my next question must of course be: HowTo backup 'one to one' without compressing? It will not save space, but eons of time!

After 3½ hours I aborted the backup, by then merely 38 % of My Documents were saved. Backing up a computer seems to be so big a project, it clearly takes practising, and has to be well planned ahead.

--

At the end of the day I find it unacceptable that Backup4All did not go on with the backup when it found a strange filename, but STOPPED. It could have informed me at the end or whatever, but it cannot just STOP and sit there, waiting for ever. Maybe there is an option somewhere I should have activated? I didn't find it.

I would also like the option to make a backup without compressing.

And I want Backup4All to FULLY support Unicode.

Edit: I turned off email client, skype, scrensaver and other 'active' programs, before starting the backup. I also first changed Priority to High.

Tried a demo from them once, about 1 year ago. My overall impression for this piece of software was good, but there was one major letdown, Samba support.

/*rantWhatever I did, it was not possible to write a backup to a Centos 4.3 powered PC, which was setup as a file-server. The strange thing was that practically all different (freeware) file-managers did not have any problem writing to the same backup folder. A lot of different (freeware like Karen's Replicator, DSynchronize, Cobian Backup, AllwaysSync, RapidBackup, Unison, BoxBackup, Comodo Backup, BackupTime and Yadis) backup solutions were tried, but only SyncBack SE was able to store a backup. And was it not for it's terrible interface, I would be using it./*rant

If possible, can somebody here shed some light if Samba support has improved with the latest version of Backup4All or knows about another freeware solution?

I think that I've had a lot of hair pulling because of this: my backups live on a Synology NAS and the only way to get B4A to work somewhat regularly was to use a local temp folder and alternate zipping (which is not what the Help file suggests)